During Tuesday registration time, staff will be sharing revision tips and strategies with their form groups. This morning each form have received a pack of stationary resources, equipment and a revision guide to help them in their preparations for their forthcoming exams. We will share weekly the tips and suggestions on our website and through Show My Homework so that students and Parents/Carers can utilise this information at home when revising independently.
How do I decide what to revise?
Whenever you revise, you are doing one of three things:
- Finding and closing gaps in your knowledge.
- Strengthening fading knowledge in your long-term memory.
- Practising recalling knowledge quickly.
Whichever purpose your revision has, it is important that you focus on the weaknesses within your
knowledge. It is tempting to revise topics you’re already good at. However, if you do this, you waste
valuable revision time and you could get a shock when you don’t do well in exams or assessments.
Before you start revising for a subject, you should decide what you need to focus on.
When deciding what to revise:
Do:
- gather information about the topics which you need to revise.
- break subjects and topics down into manageable chunks.
- revise topics which you don’t enjoy or which you find difficult.
- keep a record of the topics you have chosen to revise and the revision you have completed for those topics
Don’t
- spend more time making lists of what to revise than actually revising.
- write down entire subjects or topics as areas to revise.
- revise topics you enjoy or topics in which you are already successful.
- expect yourself to remember the areas which you need to revise.
How to decide what to revise:
1. Use information from a range of sources to find out where your weaknesses are.
What topics don’t I
enjoy or feel success
in?
What does my teacher
think I need to revise?
What are my weakest
areas from Knowledge
Assessments or home
learning quizzes?
In which topics or
questions did I
struggle in my last
assessment?
2. Create a table of topics and subjects on which you need to focus.
Example: Spanish
3. As you complete revision on these topics, create quizzes for yourself, or self-mark exam practice questions. Fill in your scores. This will allow you to see your success over time.
4. As you become more successful in the areas you have identified, go back to step one. This will allow you identify any gaps in new knowledge or any information which has faded since you made your first list.